And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie . . . (2 Thessalonians 2:11)
This verse best describes the current state of affairs politically and socially in the United States. Thanks to Trumpists (including Christian Nationalists, White Supremacists, and Fundamentalist Christians) and their irrational anti-science, anti-vax, anti-mask beliefs, our nation is on the verge of civil war. Over what? Vaccines, masks, and fear of losing personal FREEDOM are driving otherwise decent, hardworking Americans to fall under the spell of false prophets. Believing the lies peddled by these charlatans, our friends, neighbors, and family members are embracing all sorts of nonsense. There was a time when we could ignore such people, pushing them to the fringes of our society. Unfortunately, the election of Donald Trump changed everything. Democrats thought that kicking Trump out of office would be the cure for what ails us. Uncle Joe will save us from ourselves, right? How is that working out for us?
Let me conclude this post with a quote from an article written by Alex Ruiz (aka Spaniard VIII):
A great deception is happening today, all over the world. The jab does a devastating thing to the human body. After a person takes the two jabs, it wipes out one’s antibodies—the immune system—and won’t be able to fight against other diseases.
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The jab is satanic, and its purpose is to kill off one’s immune system to become compromised for future diseases. It makes a lot of sense to me why they are so hammered in getting everyone jabbed. In the future, after everyone’s antibody is gone, they can release another plague to wipe out many people. That is what the elites, who are into the occult, have in mind. Why do you think we have abortion facilities to lower the human population.
Everyone who got deceived in taking the jab has put their lives in danger. Fear was the tool that Satan used to make people take the needle and kill their antibodies.
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When a new virus is introduced to the population, all those who got jabbed will be defenseless. Many people will die from a plague, as stated in Revelation 6:8. The stage is being set for that day. Are we not to trust in the Lord, or should we put our trust in men?
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The people in New York City are under assault. Below is a speech that the Governor of NY gave to believers that will shed light on Satan’s strategy.
NY Governor, Kathy Hochul said:
“We are not through this pandemic I wished we were, but I prayed a lot to God during this time and you know what God did, answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers, He made them come up with a vac**** that is from God to us, and we must say thank you, God. Thank you, and I wear my vac***** necklace all the time to say I’m vac****ted. All of you, yes, I know you’re vac****ted. You’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there, who aren’t listening to God, and what God wants, you know this, you know who they are. I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it, and say we owe this to each other, we love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another, and how do you show that love? But to care about each other enough to say, please get vac****ted because I love you.”
She wears a necklace that says vaxed instead of the cross. She said that she prays to God. My question would be, which God? Not the God of the Bible. A Democrat, who supports the murders of infants, lawlessness, godlessness through socialism, sexual immorality— which is homosexuality, and making Americans take a deadly jab against their will or they will get punished. This lady is demonic, and she is making this vac**** her religion by saying it is from God, and she is sending out her apostles. Her gospel to Christians is, Jesus loves you and wants you to take the death shot. Would Jesus want you to take a jab that will destroy your immune system, which He put into your body to protect it from viruses? This woman tries to look like a lamb but speaks like a dragon.
Is Ruiz alone in his beliefs? Of course not. We live in a country where lunacy is now mainstream. Millions of Americans believe COVID-19/vaccines are tools used by Democrats, liberals, socialists, evolutionists, and atheists to destroy Christian America and usher in the Antichrist’s one-world government. No amount of science or rational argumentation will change their minds.
The Apostle Paul had this to say to a young preacher named Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:1: This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. Perilous times have indeed come, but no Jesus is coming as a thief in the night to rapture us away. We are on our own.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Over the years, I have responded to thousands of emails and comments from Evangelical Christians, including those who are part of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. After thirteen years of swimming in the Evangelical swamp, I have learned a few things:
No matter what I write, Evangelical zealots are going to reject what I say
No matter what I say, Evangelical zealots are going to dismiss my story out of hand
No matter how I treat Evangelical zealots, they will continue to smear my name, attack my character, and shit on my doorstep
I have also learned that Evangelical zealots have little regard or respect for me as a person. I ask commenters to follow the comment guidelines, and many people do. However, Evangelical zealots seem to think that the rules don’t apply to them; that they have a right to say whatever they want; that they have a message to deliver to me straight from the mouth of God. Thus, zealots believe they can verbally assault me and those I love, and I should just roll over and be nice to them. And if I don’t, I am accused of being just like the IFB preachers I oppose.
Here’s what I know: I respond directly and honestly with commenters on this blog, people who send me emails, or message me on social media. Don’t believe me? Ask Carolyn, my editor. She reads my email responses and comments. She will tell you I am kind and thoughful in my responses as long as people treat me in kind. However, if someone starts with condemning me to Hell, attacking my character, or verbally assaulting me, I am likely to give them what regular readers call the “Bruce Gerencser Treatment.” Ask honest questions or make comments worthy of a response, and I will do my best to patiently and kindly respond to you.
The sad truth is this: many Evangelicals cannot (or refuse to) play well with others — especially people associated with the IFB church movement. I am at a place in life where I am no longer willing to invest any emotional capital in trying to “reach” them. My goal has always been to help people who have doubts and questions about Christianity or who are no longer believers. While my writing has been instrumental in more than a few Evangelicals leaving the faith, that’s never been my objective.
I will continue to help people in any way I can. Piss in my corn flakes? You reap what you sow.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I have long argued that Evangelicals are inherently Fundamentalist. Several years ago, I wrote a post titled Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?:
Many people think that Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism are two different species of conservative Christianity. However, I plan to show in this post that Evangelicals are inherently Fundamentalist, and that the only issue is to what degree they are Fundamentalist.
Some of the confusion comes from the fact that there are Evangelicals, such as the Independent Fundamentalist (IFB) church movement, who proudly wear the Fundamentalist label. Thus, an Evangelical — say, someone who is a pastor in the Evangelical Free Church of America – rightly says, I am NOT like those crazy Fundamentalist Baptists. They see the extremism of the IFB church movement, condemn it, and by doing so think that they are not Fundamentalist.
The word Fundamentalist was originally used to describe a group of sects, churches, and pastors who took a stand against perceived theological liberalism in the denominations of which they were a part. From 1910 to 1915, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA), published 90 essays that were published in a 12-volume set of books titled, The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. (You can see a complete listing of the essays on Wikipedia.) These essays provided the theological foundation for the modern Fundamentalist movement.
The words “fundamentalist” and “fundamentalism” can also be used in a generic sense. While almost always used when describing the beliefs of religious sects, fundamentalist beliefs can also be found in politics, science, economics, and even atheism. The focus of this post is Christian Fundamentalism, particularly Protestant Fundamentalism.
There are two components to the Fundamentalism found in Evangelicalism:
◉Theological Fundamentalism
◉Social Fundamentalism
Theological Fundamentalism
All Evangelicals are theological Fundamentalists. What do Evangelicals believe?
◉The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of the triune God.
◉Salvation is through the merit and work of Jesus Christ.
◉Jesus is the eternal, virgin-born, sinless, miracle-working Son of God who came to earth 2,000 years ago to die on the cross for the sins of humankind.
◉Jesus resurrected from the dead three days after being crucified. He later ascended back to Heaven and now sits at the right hand of God the Father.
◉Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and salvation is gained only by putting one’s faith in Jesus Christ.
◉All non-Christian religions are false and many Christian sects have heretical beliefs.
◉There is a literal Heaven, a Hell, and Devil.
◉Saved people go to Heaven when they die and non-saved people go to Hell when they die.
◉Someday, Jesus Christ will return to earth to judge the living and the dead. The heavens and earth will be destroyed and God will make a new heaven and a new earth.
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Evangelicals may quibble with one another over the finer points of this or that doctrine, but EVERY Evangelical believes what I have listed above. And it is these beliefs that make them theological Fundamentalists.
While it is true that liberal and progressive theology are making inroads within Evangelicalism, this does not mean that Evangelicalism is becoming less Fundamentalist. Liberal/progressive Evangelicals are outliers, and, in time, due to the inflexibility of Evangelical theology, they will either leave Evangelicalism and join liberal/Progressive Christian sects or they will become a bastard child subset within Evangelicalism.
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Social Fundamentalism
Social Fundamentalism focuses on the conduct, lifestyle, and social engagement of the Christian. An Evangelical looks at the rules, standards, and negativity of an IFB church that proudly claims its Fundamentalist moniker and says, SEE I am NOT a Fundamentalist. I don’t believe in legalism. I believe in grace, and I leave it to God to change how a person lives.
This sounds good, doesn’t it? However, when you start to poke around a bit, you will find that almost every Evangelical is a social Fundamentalist — the only difference between Evangelicals being the degree of Fundamentalism. This can be quickly demonstrated by asking those who think they are non-fundamentalist Evangelicals a few questions. Questions like:
◉Can a practicing homosexual be a Christian?
◉Can a homosexual man be a deacon or pastor in your church?
◉Can a same-sex couple work in the nursery together?
◉Do think it is okay for unmarried heterosexuals to engage in sexual activity?
◉Can a cohabiting heterosexual couple be a member of your church?
◉Do you think it is morally right for a woman to wear a skimpy outfit to church?
◉Is it ever right to have an abortion?
◉Do you think smoking marijuana is okay?
◉Do you think it okay for your pastor to smoke cigars and drink alcohol at the local bar?
◉Is it okay for someone, in the privacy of their home, to become inebriated?
By asking these questions, and a number of similar ones, you will quickly discover that the non-Fundamentalist Evangelical is a social Fundamentalist after all. While these Evangelicals may jeer and laugh at the crazy, extreme rules and standards of the IFB church movement, they too have their own set of non-negotiable social standards. They, like their IFB brethren, are social Fundamentalists.
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I am sure some Evangelicals will argue that their social Fundamentalism, like their theological Fundamentalism, comes straight from the B-i-b-l-e. Of course they do. ALL Evangelicals think their beliefs come straight from the Bible. The IFB pastor has a proof-text for everything he preaches against, as does the I am NOT a Fundamentalist Evangelical pastor. Both believe the Bible is truth, an inspired, inerrant, supernatural text. The only difference between them is their interpretation of the Bible.
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Remember, if it walks, acts, and talks like a Fundamentalist, it is a Fundamentalist. Evangelicals can protest all they want that I am unfairly tarring them with the Fundamentalist brush, but as I have shown in this post, their theological and social beliefs clearly show they are Fundamentalist. If they don’t like the label, I suggest they change their beliefs and distance themselves from Evangelicalism. They need not become atheists/agnostics if they leave Evangelicalism. Even though I was not able to do so, many former Evangelicals find great value and peace in liberal/progressive Christianity. Others find the same in non-Christian religions or universalism. If it is God you want, there are plenty of places to find him/her/it.
Today, an Ex-IFB Fundamentalist named John Fanortney left several comments on an interview I did on the Preachers Boy podcast, hosted by Eric Skwarczynski.
Bravery has nothing to do with Bruce’s decisions. Possibly honesty, but honesty proves the conscience given by God. There are many abusers and bullies within the IBF movement as there are at CNN, MSNBC, ABC, socialistic schools, politics, leftists, BLM, Fauci, Biden, etc. Bruce has chosen to believe the impossible: accidental evolution with the survival of the fittest. Bruce and his groupies BLINDLY follow the mask mandates and Covid lies as many fundamentalists BLINDLY follow their pastor.
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Bruce paints a pretty picture of his blog. One will experience same vitriol from him as one may have experienced from an IBF fundamentalist. Bruce can spew unkindness just as IBF pastors can. I agree with Bruce about the child molester that he mentioned. The people who voted him for pastor need their head examined; in fact, the man should be punished by drowning according to the Lord Jesus. I served under David Hyles and Jack Hyles and when I discovered their wickedness, it didn’t shake my faith. It actually enhanced my faith because the Bible warns of this behavior. Many pastors of the IBF are wretched, but so are many atheists like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, etc. Both systems have good and evil people.
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@Bruce Gerencser you are right; it’s IFB [I pointed out his incorrect use of the acronym]. You don’t need to make an apology. I was just letting people know. I left fundamentalism, but I didn’t leave the Bible. As one can read that I was not unkind to you in my comment. I was simply stating an observation. Jordan Peterson is an amazing example of dealing with hostile opposition.
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Bruce definitely can be a Christian and I think he is, but he is an offended Christian. His offenses allows [sic] him to justify his position.
It’s clear from Fanortney’s comments that he is still a Fundamentalist, despite him suggesting otherwise. Scores of IFB pastors and church members have fled this sect’s narrow confines, only to land in places that are still Fundamentalist — just less so. They have just traded one flavor of Fundamentalism for another.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I came of age in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, made a public profession of faith at an IFB church at age fifteen, attended an IFB college in the 1970s, married an IFB preacher’s daughter, and pastored several IFB churches. For much of my life, I attended church every time the doors were open. At the height of my involvement with IFB churches, I attended church services and programs a minimum of four days a week. Throw in revivals, youth rallies, and Bible conferences, I spent over 225 days a year at the church building. Factor in studying for sermons and work projects, and I pretty much lived at the church.
For much of my life, I lived and breathed “church.” No, the “church” wasn’t my Lord and Savior; Jesus was. My love for Jesus and his church motivated me to give my life to the work of the ministry. My goal as a pastor was to teach the saints (church members) and evangelize the lost (unsaved). Tuesdays were the night I met with a handful of church members so we could go on “visitation.” This was the night we went two by two (either same sex or married couples) to the homes of people who recently visited the church or had stopped attending services. I believed it was important to contact every first-time visitor as soon as possible, showing them that we “cared.” When people started missing church services, I wanted to make sure someone from the congregation touched base with them. I never wanted someone to leave the church without giving a reason why. If there was a problem, I wanted the opportunity to fix it.
Most church members skipped Tuesday night visitation. The same went for Saturday bus visitation. The people who showed up on Tuesdays were the same people who showed up on Saturdays. Every church has a core group of members who do most of the work. Most congregants were passive church members. One church I pastored reached 200 in attendance. Yet, it was a group of 20 or so people who were the glue that held the church together. Attendance on Sunday evenings dropped to 90, and on Thursdays, less than 50 people showed up for prayer meetings (and at the churches I pastored, we actually PRAYED).
Visitation was a tool I used to entice new people to attend the church and keep sheep from wandering away. Like a door-to-door salesman, my goal was to convert prospective customers (visitors) into product users. My preaching and personality, along with the friendliness of the congregation, were likely the primary selling points. People who loved me and my sermons and felt “loved” tended to join the church. Those who didn’t went elsewhere.
Did your church have a visitation night? Did you go on visitation? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
A guest post by Neil Robinson. Neil blogs at Rejecting Jesus.
One of the most liberating aspects of jettisoning Christianity was the realisation that nothing I did had cosmic significance. Nothing anybody does has cosmic significance. Yet to hear the cult’s leaders and spokesmen talk, now as then, everything matters.
First and foremost, what you believe determines whether you lived forever in Heaven or not. Can you credit that: what you believe! So better get that doctrine sorted out! Right thought makes all the difference. Believe something only minimally unorthodox and your eternal life is in jeopardy. Not only that, but what you think in the privacy of your own head, about issues like abortion, homosexuality, politics and society, is subject to the Lord’s scrutiny. Better get it right – ‘right’ being the operative term. It means recognising that the Almighty is really only interested in the USA; with the exception of Israel, he hasn’t much interest in other nations, so better get your thinking straight on that score too, buddy.
God is, or so his self-appointed mouthpieces like to tell you, obsessively interested in how you, as an individual, spend your time, the language you use, and whether you’re a faithful steward of the money he supplies (a.k.a. the money you earn for yourself). He lays it on your heart about how you should spend your time, the only valuable way of doing so being in the service of his Kingdom-that-never-comes.
You’re made to feel that if your marriage isn’t close to perfection then you’re not really working at it (though god knows the ‘Biblical view’ of marriage is nothing like the one promoted by today’s Christian leaders). You’re made to feel you must share the gospel with everyone else you have relationships with: children, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, complete strangers. Don’t they too deserve to have a chance at eternal life? You don’t want them denied it because you failed to speak up, do you? Well, do you?
And then there’s the guilt when you can’t do all of this. You’re not sure you believe all the right stuff. You think you do but then you’re told about some point of doctrine you hadn’t considered and it is, apparently, really essential you believe that too. So you consult the Holy Spirit who you think lives in your heart and you wonder why he hasn’t spoken up before now. Maybe you have liberal views about abortion. And really, you can’t find it in yourself to condemn all those ‘sodomites’ you’re told about; what difference does it make if you do or don’t? And your marriage is less than perfect. In fact, it’s a little bit messy, like human relationships tend to be, and sometimes you want just to relax, maybe laze a little bit. Not everything you do has to contribute to the Kingdom, after all.
But the guilt won’t let you. What kind of Christian are you, anyway? And as for witnessing at every opportunity, you wonder why you feel like a dog that’s compelled to pee at every lamp-post. Can’t friends just be friends? Can’t you just appreciate others for who they are, not as sinners who need saving? Apparently not.
What a wonderful release it is then, when you finally realise that none of this crap matters. Nothing you do, say or think makes the slightest bit of difference to whether you or others live forever (Spoiler: you won’t, they won’t). How you act may help others feel a bit better about themselves or provide you with a sense of fulfilment but that’s the extent of it. Outside your immediate context, you’re insignificant, and there’s great significance to that. The pressure is off; God is not watching you to see whether you’re a good and faithful servant. Your time, money, and thoughts are yours and yours alone. It’s entirely up to you how you use them, free from the tyranny of religion.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Members of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, and people closely associated with Hyles-Anderson College and Pastor Jack Schaap, were astonished at the firing of Schaap for having sex with a teenager he was counseling, and his later criminal conviction in March 2013. Evidently, these people have a short memory or live in denial. First Baptist has a long history of pastors and other church leaders getting themselves in trouble with the fairer sex. (Please read Chicago Magazine feature story on First Baptist and their sordid history.)
Jack Schaap’s father-in-law, Jack Hyles, had a long-running illicit sexual relationship with his secretary. The evidence against Hyles was overwhelming, yet the church rejected this evidence and Jack Hyles continued to pastor the church until his death in 2001. (Please read The Biblical Evangelist’s report on Jack Hyles)
David Hyles, the son of Jack Hyles and youth pastor of First Baptist Church, had numerous sexual relationships with women in the church. The church quietly sent him away to pastor another church, not telling the new congregation about his sexual proclivities, and he continued to have numerous sexual relationships with women in the new church.
Many people praised the church for publicly exposing Jack Schaap’s “sin.” This is the same church that ignored Jack Hyles’ “sin,” covered up David Hyles’ “sin,” and whitewashed numerous other scandals in the church and college. So forgive me if I don’t think they are acting “better” than the Catholic Church (as one commenter said).
The people of First Baptist Church were taught by Hyles and Schaap that if they didn’t see something it didn’t happen. (Please see Sexual Abuse and the Jack Hyles Rule: If You Didn’t See It, It Didn’t Happen.) They were taught that unless an allegation could be confirmed by two or more witnesses (Matthew 18) they were not to believe it. This kind of thinking resulted in a culture where “sin” was ignored or swept under the proverbial rug — a rug that is so high now that you have to walk up a ten-foot hill to get into the church.
In general, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement abhors scandal and its members do everything they can to cover it up. More important than the sin itself or the victims is the church’s “testimony.” The church’s testimony must be protected at all costs, even if a pedophile in their midst is ignored, as was the case with Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida and its pastor Bob Gray.
For First Baptist Church of Hammond to out Jack Schaap, they had to have been backed into a corner without the option of covering it up or quietly making the “problem” go away. Calling in attorney David Gibbs to “manage” the crisis speaks volumes about the depth of the scandal. Gibbs is considered a “fixer” in the IFB church movement.
The root of the Jack Schaap scandal is found in the ministry, teaching, and doctrine of his predecessor, Jack Hyles. The remainder of this post will focus on him. It is impossible to understand the Jack Schaap story without first looking at Jack Hyles’ forty-two year ministry at First Baptist Church of Hammond (a church that was an American Baptist Church until Hyles pulled it out of the Convention a few years after he arrived there in 1959).
In its heyday, First Baptist Church was the largest church in the United States (and at times, claimed to be the largest church in the world). The church was built around two things: the bus ministry and Jack Hyles.
In 1973, First Baptist saw attendances exceeding 25,000 people. At the center of this huge church was its pastor, Jack Hyles. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Jack Hyles was, as many of us described, the pope of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church movement. He authored numerous books with titles such as Let’s Go Soul Winning, Let’s Build an Evangelistic Church, Enemies of Soul Winning, The Hyles Church Manual, How to Rear Infants, How to Rear Children, How to Rear Teenagers, Satan’s Bid for Your Child, Marriage is a Commitment, Woman the Completer, and Blue Denim and Lace.
Jack Hyles, 1973
There is a hard-and-fast rule in the IFB movement: the greater the church attendance, the more authority the pastor is granted and the more weight his words carry. I heard countless big-name IFB pastors say, “until you have as many eggs in your basket as I do, you have no right to criticize me.” Pastors with small churches were looked down on and were expected to shut up and learn from those whose baskets were overflowing with eggs.
From 1976 to 1989, I heard Jack Hyles preach numerous times. I traveled to a number of Sword of the Lord conferences, often taking with me people from the churches I pastored. Hyles was a dynamic preacher, a real motivator. He used very little of the Bible in his preaching. His sermons were always topical or textual and were littered with personal stories and illustrations. Hyles was a narcissist. Most of his stories and illustrations were about his own personal life and exploits. His stories about him and his mother are legendary.
Over time, as I became more and more dissatisfied with the IFB church movement, I paid closer attention to the substance of Hyles’ sermons. In particular, I focused on the stories Hyles told. I came to the conclusion that Hyles was a narcissistic liar.
Hyles would often talk about how important and busy he was. In several sermons, he talked about how many people he counseled every week. I sat down and did the math and I concluded it was physically impossible for Hyles to have counseled as many people each week as he claimed.
Hyles was a ruthless man. I watched him, during Q and A time, at a conference at the Newark Baptist Temple, dress down and belittle pastors for asking the “wrong” questions. He refused to allow anyone to challenge his authority as the king of the IFB hill.
To understand the scandals at First Baptist Church in Hammond, we must understand the gospel that has been preached at First Baptist for over 50 years. It is the same gospel that is/was preached by men like Bob Gray of Texas, Bob Gray of Jacksonville, Curtis Hutson, Dennis Corle, Tom Malone, and thousands of other IFB pastors.
Jack Hyles preached a bastardized version of the Christian gospel. The Hyles gospel has been labeled as decisional regeneration or one, two, three, repeat after me. (Please see One, Two, Three, Repeat After Me: Salvation Bob Gray Style.) I used to label the methodology of the IFB church movement this way:
The only thing that mattered was winning souls. IFB Evangelist Dennis Corle told me one time that I should spend more time soul winning and less time studying in preparation to preach on Sunday. All that mattered to him was the number of souls saved.
In the IFB church, the key to church growth is to keep more people coming in the front door than are going out the back. IFB churches are notorious for membership churn — especially when a pastor leaves and a new one comes in.
If a pastor dared suggest that new life in Christ meant a change in conduct, they were accused of preaching “works salvation” (the Lordship Salvation controversy). According to the Hyles gospel, it was all about praying the prayer, and once a person prayed the prayer they could NEVER, EVER be lost again. This is why some people insist that I am still saved, even if I don’t want to be. Once God has you he never lets go.
The Hyles gospel filled churches with people who had made a mental assent to a set of propositional beliefs. Every year, churches like First Baptist Church in Hammond and Longview Baptist Temple report thousands of people being saved. Most of these new converts stop attending after a short while, but this is of no consequence. They prayed the “prayer.” On to the next sinner in need of saving.
The IFB church movement is centered on men. Most IFB churches are pastored by one man who has total control of the church. Most IFB churches are congregational in name only, with the pastor being the autocratic king of the church.
Jack Hyles, David Hyles, Jim Krall, World’s Greatest Men
Jack Hyles, Jack Schaap, and countless other big-name IFB traveling preachers routinely promote the notion of pastoral authority. The pastor, under the authority of Jesus and powered by the Holy Spirit, is the final authority in the church. He is the hub around which everything turns.
IFB churches are not known for their names, but for who their pastors are. IFB church members routinely say, when asked about what church they attend, say: I go to Pastor So-and So’s church.
Churches aren’t known for what they believe or even the works they do. They are known for who their pastor is. When asked where he goes to Church, a Christian will often say “I go to Pastor Smith’s Church.”
The focus of everything is on the pastor. He is the mover and shaker. He is what powers the machine. Without him it all fails.
Christian TV, radio and publishing is all about the personalities within the Church. Name recognition is the name of the game.
Does anyone really believe Rod Parsley is a good writer? Yet, his books sell. Why? Name recognition.
Everything is focused on and culminates with the sermon and the preacher.
I had people drive 40 minutes to the church I pastored in SE Ohio. They loved my preaching. They thought I was the greatest preacher since the last guy they thought was wonderful. Really? As much as I think that I am a pretty good public speaker, they had to drive past 40 churches to get to the church I pastored. Not one of those churches had a preacher that could preach competently? ( Well maybe not, after hearing more than a few preachers.)
What happens when the pastor leaves the church? What happens when the personalities change, when a new preacher takes over? Strife. Division. People leave the church. Why? Because church became about the preacher rather than about Jesus and serving others.
Why is it the pastor’s name is on everything? The sign out front. The bulletin . Every piece of literature the church produces. If it is really is all about Jesus then why does it matter if anyone knows the pastor’s name?
Ah, but it does matter. Many Evangelical Christians are good capitalists (serving a socialist Jesus). They are consumers first and Christians second. They know people are “attracted” (the attractional method) to the church by the pastor, the programs, the building, etc.
They know the pastor becomes the face of their church. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is, and quite frankly, it is the church itself that must bear the blame for this.
The church members revel in the cult of personality. They love having a name- brand preacher. They watch Christian TV and listen to Christian radio because Pastor/Rev/Dr/Evangelist/Bishop/Apostle so-and-so is on. Take away the names and it becomes as interesting as eating a no-name hamburger at a no-name restaurant surrounded by no-name people . . .
Is it any wonder IFB pastors and churches have the scandals they do? Members are taught to obey their pastor without question. He is the man of God. If he is doing something wrong, God will chastise him. This kind of thinking allows IFB pastors to commit adultery, molest children, and steal from the church without anyone ever knowing about it. I could spend days writing about IFB pastors who have abused their place of authority and committed heinous acts against the people they pastored. (Please see the Black Collar Crime series.)
IFB churches think they are above the world and other churches because of what they believe. They are “Bible believers” and their pastors preach hard against “sin.” Because of this, they have a hard time believing that their pastors or famous preachers could ever commit crimes like Jack Hyles, Jack Schaap, David Hyles, and Bob Gray did.
Bob Gray, pastor emeritus of Longview Baptist Temple had this to say on this blog about the Schaap scandal (I was unable to find the post on Gray’s blog):
May I present the practical side? There exists more molestation cases proportionately reported in the 42,000 churches of the Southern Baptist Convention than in the 22,000 independent Baptist churches. Consider the largest denomination in our nation, the Catholic Church, and then think on their sexual transgressions for a while. This is not to take lightly one person who is violated by a leader in a church.
Look carefully at the argument Gray is making here. The Southern Baptists and the Catholics are worse than we are! Praise Jesus! Such thinking should sicken all of us.
Here is what I know about the IFB church movement. They will wail and moan for a while, but, in a few weeks or months, the scandal will pass, and they will go back to “winning souls” and “preaching hard against sin.” It is only a matter of time before a-n-o-t-h-e-r scandal rocks their churches. Until the IFB church movement repudiates its corruption of the Christian gospel and changes how their churches are governed, there is no hope of meaningful change.
Change is not likely to come because of their literalism, and their belief in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible. Armed with certainty, knowing they are right, they will continue to preach a corrupted gospel and allow narcissistic pastors to rule over them.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Last weekend, I travelled to a village about three hours from my New York City apartment. I have visited about two dozen countries and lived in one besides the United States. Yet I felt more like a stranger in that place, so close to my home yet a world apart.
New York is often cited, along with California and Massachusetts, as one of the “bluest” states in this country. While we elect Democrats by wide margins to national offices and the Governor’s Mansion, it’s mainly because the Empire State’s population is concentrated in New York City, Albany, and a few smaller urban areas. Beyond those metropoli are rural expanses like the Adirondacks and Rust Belt towns.
It is in the latter enclaves that one finds the detritus of a tide that receded after World War II. Someone once quipped that the Statue of Liberty was chosen as a state symbol because the splintered remains of a barn or the weathered bricks of an abandoned factory wouldn’t make for very good public relations.
But those barns and plants would be good stand-ins for not only what has left the state but what remains in much of it. As agriculture corporatized and moved south and west, manufacturing followed the same trajectory before leaving these shores altogether. The sorts of folks who vacationed in the Catskills and Adirondacks would follow suit once relatively affordable flights to more exotic locales became available; and the young decamped for Albany, New York, and other larger cities; the ones left behind felt like children whose parents broke promises to, and abandoned, them.
The promise, whether explicit or implicit, was that as long as they worked hard and did what they were told, they would have jobs that paid them well enough to support their families and, perhaps, spend a week or two in a cabin by a lake. And the fact that they were their families’ providers would give them a place at the head of their tables and the top of their food chains.
What I realized during my recent trip is that such people — nearly all of them white men, almost none of whom continued their education beyond high school, and many of whom “served their country” when they were sent to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan — were just like the man who occasioned my trip.
He was my uncle — and godfather, which, if you grew up Catholic, is almost as important as your biological father. I was there to attend a memorial service for him. He’d passed a week and a half earlier, nominally from a heart attack but, I believe, also from health problems many years in the making. While growing up, I spent a lot of time with him, as we didn’t live very far from each other and, I believe, we had a great love for each other that survived the changes each of us experienced.
As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I am a transgender woman. My gender affirmation didn’t seem to change his affection for me. In retrospect, that seems particularly remarkable given a change he underwent: About twenty years ago, a near-fatal auto accident caused him to re-evaluate much in his life and “accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.” Until that time, his relationship to the Catholic faith in which he’d been raised wasn’t much different from mine after I’d drifted away, although I had yet to declare myself a full-blown atheist.
The pastors who presided over his memorial remarked on how avidly he read and studied the Bible and how important prayer had become in his life. In a few of our conversations, he said, “I’m not Catholic, I’m Christian.” My aunt echoed that declaration. At the memorial, other members of his church and Bible study groups echoed the pastors’ assessment of my uncle. With the exception of one man, who looked young enough to be one of the pastor’s grandsons, they seemed remarkably similar to my aunt and uncle: white people without much formal education who worked hard but, because of changes in the economy (and culture) could not reap what they believed to be the rightful fruits of their efforts. And they were marooned in a place that international economic neo-liberalism (in the classical definition of that term) had left behind.
In other words, the tide receded, and they were grasping at anything they could. They aren’t stupid but they don’t understand what left them where they are, any more than I — with a formal science education that ended before Reagan and Thatcher took their offices — can tell you what causes the waves to turn back toward the horizon. I hope I don’t seem condescending in saying that such people are easy prey for whomever and whatever would present themselves as saviors, or who or what would at least offer an easy explanation of why they are in their current plight. More important to those who feel helpless, those who preyed on them offered scapegoats, and the hope that everything will be better, if not tomorrow, then some day, some day.
While my uncle didn’t express the resentment toward non-white, non-Christian, non-cisgendered folks who “took” something by gaining the same rights other people enjoy — and, if this sounds self-interested, accepted me — he did grasp at a straw of hope offered to him when he was at his most vulnerable. At his memorial, I realized that vulnerability and the fear it engenders when one hasn’t learned how to deal with it, made him, and his fellow church and Bible study members easy “marks” — not only for the promise of an afterlife that resembled the one they’d lost or yearned for, but for someone who parlayed the silver spoon that was in his mouth when he was born into reality TV stardom and multiple bankruptcies. At least my uncle didn’t vote for him. But that’s not the only reason I miss him.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Only the first article was written by me. Before this week, I haven’t written anything meaningful about COVID-19 since November 2020. All told, I have published twenty-eight articles about the virus — a minuscule percentage of the articles posted since March 2020. Earlier this year, I had a comment problem with a reader who was anti-vax and anti-mask. After allowing her to say her piece, I banned her. She took to her blog to denounce me and several readers of this blog. She continues to beat the anti-vax, anti-mask drum to this day.
The aforementioned woman loved my atheism but hated my politics — even though wearing masks and getting vaccinated are science and social issues, not political. Some readers wish I would just stick to critiquing Evangelical Christianity or espousing atheism. They KNOW I am a Democrat, a liberal, a Democratic Socialist, and a pacifist, yet they get pissed off when I write about those things. They KNOW I am a skeptic and a rationalist, believing science is the best way to explain and understand the world we live in. Yet, when I critique one of their pet beliefs, they become offended or outraged. Such is the life of a writer.
After posting the most recent articles on COVID-19, my Facebook page follower numbers dropped by eighty-five. I can think of no other reason for the drop than people getting upset over the content of these posts. Welcome to 2021.
I have little tolerance for people who are anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers (or Trump supporters). I am done playing “nice.” No rational or moral case can be made for refusing to get vaccinated or wear a mask. I don’t buy the notion that unvaccinated people are “vaccine-hesitant.” There is now sufficient evidence for the efficacy and safety of vaccines. We know masks “work.” Most of the people now getting sick and dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated people. Due to their political beliefs or pigheadedness, unvaccinated people think it is their “right” to expose others to a deadly virus. FREEDOM is their watchword, and they refuse to accept that they have a moral responsibility to get vaccinated and wear masks. Many of these people are also professing Christians. Yet, their anti-vax/anti-mask behavior reveals that they aren’t followers of Christ at all. Jesus told his disciples that they were to love their neighbors. Don’t love your neighbor? Don’t say you love God. What better way to show you love your neighbor than getting vaccinated or wearing a mask?
Bruce, don’t you think you should try to reach these people? Nope. The problem isn’t a lack of knowledge. I could write on COVID-19 every day for a month and not persuade one unvaccinated person. We have reached a place when federal and state governments MUST mandate vaccinations and mask-wearing. No, this doesn’t mean rounding up people and inoculating them against their will. However, it does mean that being vaccinated (or being tested weekly at your own expense) and wearing a mask are the entryway to commerce and employment.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I put out the call to readers, asking them for questions they would like me to answer. If you have a question, please leave it here or email me. All questions will be answered in the order in which they are received.
Becky asked:
Bruce, did you ever meet any truly lovely fundamentalists/evangelicals…besides yourself? That is, people that loved their fellow man and actually tried to follow that directive to care about the sinners, and not to just preach and be power mad?
I have been exposed to the best and worst that Evangelicalism has to offer. Do I know thoughtful, decent, kind Evangelical preachers? Sure. That said, to a person they believe that God will punish all non-Christians in the Lake of Fire after they die. Few of them are able (or willing) to form friendships outside of their club. And all too often, what friendships they do have with unbelievers have an ulterior motive: salvation of sinners. Rare is the Evangelical who can befriend someone and let them go to Hell in peace. They exist, but I haven’t met one lately.
If I used how Evangelical preachers have treated me since I left Christianity in 2008 as the measure by which to judge, I would conclude they are an irredeemable lot of judgmental assholes. One need only read emails from them I have published over the years to see that there are a lot of arrogant, nasty Jesus-loving men pastoring Evangelical churches — especially Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches. That said, I am sure there are preachers who self-identify as Evangelicals who are thoughtful and kind people. I just haven’t met any lately.
Becky wants to believe that I was a “lovely” Evangelical — thanks — but I must be honest: my preaching was inherently harmful. I was a separatist who divided the world up into us vs. them categories: saved vs. lost. I taught church members to separate themselves from the “world,” and I practiced the same. While I treated my neighbors and strangers with kindness and respect, my Evangelical theology was always lurking in the shadows.
Growing up in poverty and having a parent with mental health problems certainly affected how I viewed others. I spent most of my years in the ministry helping the poor, homeless, and marginalized. I was sympathetic to their plight. That said, my Evangelical theology was never far from me. I cannot overestimate how my theological beliefs materially and deeply affected my thinking.
I have a poor view of myself. I have spent the past decade trying to regain a sense of self-worth. My counselor told me that I was not as bad a person as I thought I was. I know his statement is true, but I still struggle with seeing myself as a good person. Evangelicalism will do that to you. All I know to do is to try to be a better person today than I was yesterday.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Almost thirty years ago, my mother turned a Ruger .357 handgun towards her heart, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger. Mom died moments later, slumping to an ignoble end in her bathroom. Mom had tried to kill herself numerous times over her fifty-three years of life before finally succeeding. (Please see Barbara.) I have written about some of these attempts before, so there’s no need to rehash them here.
Mom and I had a complicated relationship. My Fundamentalist religious beliefs kept me having the relationship I should have had with her. While Mom professed to be a Christian, I didn’t believe her. I genuinely thought that if she would just repent of her sins, get saved, and start following the teachings of the Bible, all would be well. No mental illness, no drug ddiction, just love, peace, and joy. It would be years later before I truly “understood” my mom. It would be years before I understood how being sexually abused by her father affected every aspect of her life. Mom’s life was a trainwreck, but once I understood that abusive, violent men often drove her train, I could then love her as she was. Or try to, anyway.
In early 1976, I decided to study for the ministry. At first, I planned to attend Briercrest Bible Institute — an non-denominational Evangelical college in Canada. But, unable to meet the non-resident financial requirements for crossing the border, I chose to attend Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan instead. This singular choice, of course, changed my life, later affecting who I would marry, where I would live, and how I would spend most of my adult life. There’s a new show on TV called Ordinary Joe. The show details how the choices we make affect the trajectory of our lives. What if I had gone to Briercrest instead of Midwestern? How different would my life be today? Better? Worse? Who can say? Alas, life is what it is.
Mom was quite proud of me. I would be the first person in our family to go to college. While Mom never heard me preach, I know she was delighted that I was a preacher. A few months before I left for college, I asked Mom if she wanted to go to a Christian concert with me at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This would be the first and last time Mom and I did something together. Just Barbara and her oldest son, Bruce.
Mom said yes, so on the appointed day, we drove to Fort Wayne to hear the Bill Gaither Trio — Bill and Gloria Gaither and Gary McSpadden. Also performing were Henry and Hazel Slaughter. Before heading over to the concert, we ate dinner at a restaurant — its name long forgotten. Mom and I would eat dinner together one more time in the spring of 1978, introducing her to Polly, my beautiful bride-to-be.
A perfect night, forty-five years ago. A night when a mother and her son could be just that without Jesus, the Bible, or mental illness getting in the way.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
